response 151 of 604:

Apr 9 23:43 UTC 2002

 re #137:

 >> Can you name one legitimate Arab government?
 >
 > Iran? Turkey?  Both have democratically elected governments, as I recall.

 Unfortunately for you chosen examples, neither Turkey or Iran are Arab
 countries.   Turkey is, well, Turkish, and Iran is mostly Persian.
 They have different languages, different customs, different ethnic origins,
 and a pretty different history than the countries, mostly on the Arabian
 peninsula and in North Africa, which may properly be called "Arab."

 Remember:  Arab != Muslim.

response 153 of 604:

Apr 10 01:24 UTC 2002

That's not really a Moslem cultural value, any more than shooting abortion
doctors is a Christian one.

Do you, by chance, have any Arafat quotes from before the Passover attacks?

response 155 of 604:

Apr 10 01:48 UTC 2002

(That's memri.ORG, not memri.COM.  memri.com is something entirely different.
Those with a bone to pick with klg should bear this in mind)

response 157 of 604:

Apr 10 02:09 UTC 2002

Re #135:  Good question.  Bernard Lewis hints at a Muslim inferiority
complex arising from the loss of lots of conquered (and converted)
territory, beginning some 600 years ago.  Spain, Sicily, all of eastern
Europe, the Caucasus, etc. were once conquered and held by Muslim
empires but fell to Christians.  It's a historic grievance which is
nursed up to the present day, as the revelation of Islam is supposed
to completely supplant Christianity (and Judaism).  Israel is another
loss of "their" land, land that "ought" to be under Muslim jurisdiction.

Re #137:  Wrong on both counts.  Turkey populated by Turks and the
language is Turkish, not Arabic.  Iran is populated by Persians and
the language is Farsi.

response 159 of 604:

Apr 10 04:54 UTC 2002

Re  #143,#144,#146,#148 - the first part of my response #143 regarded
saudi history.  Borders or the UM grad will have tons more material; but
here are some URLs that may suffice:
http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews/worldinfo/asia/saudi_Arabia.html
 nice capsule history of Saudi Arabia.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/5385/APrinceOfTheDesertAsia29.html
 http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letters/l1051.htm
 more or less contemporary writings regarding life as it then existed,
before oil and money changed it all.  Slightly romanticized -sorry, but
this is typical of the period.  I hope you weren't accusing me of
cultural chauvinism in my summation; ok, while it may have been a bit
pat, I think it's not an inaccurate distillation.

Regarding the last half of my response #143 - well, you got me, yup, I
must be displaying my American Chauvinism in questioning if we have a
right to change their cultural values.  There are many Arabs out there
who feel the US is much too involved in their internal affairs, and want
the Americans to "go home".  Are they displaying American or Arabic
Chauvinism?  Certainly the events of 9/11 place this question in a new
context -- before, it was only people in the middle east who worried
about having buildings blown up under their feet by suicide bombers.
Perhaps Rane thought that in my asking those questions, I was answering
them.  In fact, I'm not actually honestly sure what the right and fair
answer is; I think I feel I know what it ought to be, but that doesn't
mean my answer is either right or fair, and in any event I think it's
probably almost entirely irrelevant.  I think it is pretty clear that a
good part of all these conflicts in the middle east *are* wrapped up
around my question, so maybe I should have instead asked a different
question: is *WAR* the only way we have to *ANSWER* questions like this?

response 161 of 604:

Apr 10 05:57 UTC 2002

Joe, some other quotes from that same selection:

        The Prophet said 'there still exists a group within my nation who is
        keeping the faith, who are challenging their enemy and who cannot be
        harmed by their enemy and they shall be the victorious, Allah willing.'

Who cannot be harmed by their enemy? Suicide bombers / "martyrs"?

        [Pointing to a little girl] This little cutie is the first of our
        soldiers...

As for delusions (or incitement?)

        they say that there are half a million Jews in Afghanistan whom [the
        Israelis] want to bring to the West Bank and to the Gaza Strip.

Recall that Arafat's first call for a ceasefire came 10-days after Israel
instituted a unilateral ceasefire upon the release of the Mitchell Report,
and only after the suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco when 22 teenagers were
murdered. But what did he say in Arabic? He glorified the martyr:

http://www.memri.org/sd/SP23701.html

        With hearts that believe in Allah's will and predetermination, we have
        received the news about the martyrdom of the martyr. Al-Hotary, the
        son of Palestine, whose noble soul ascended to in order to rest in
        Allah's Kingdom, together with the Prophets, the men of virtue, and
        the martyrs. The heroic martyrdom operation - who turned his body into
        bombs - the model of manhood and sacrifice for the sake of Allah and
        the homeland .

Is it any wonder that by the time CIA director Tenet arrived a few days later,
Arafat was not interested in a ceasefire (despite the absence of an Israeli
reprisal for that bombing)?

But my greatest reservation about Oslo comes from the words of Faysal
Al-Husseini (born in Iraq), a "moderate" and in Arafat's inner circle:

http://www.memri.org/sd/SP23601.html
Al-Arabi (Egypt), June 24, 2001.

        Had the U.S. and Israel not realized, before Oslo, that all that was
        left of the Palestinian National movement and the Pan-Arab movement
        was a wooden [Trojan] horse called Arafat or the PLO, they would never
        have opened their fortified gates and let it inside their walls.

        In my opinion, the Intifada itself is the coming down out of the horse.
        Rather than getting into the old argumentsthis effort [the Intifada]
        could have been much better, broader, and more significant had we made
        it clearer to ourselves that the Oslo agreement, or any other
        agreement, is just a temporary procedure, or just a step towards
        something bigger.

        our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine
        from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means
        that the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many
        generations.

For more on the "phased goals" he references, see:
http://www.iris.org.il/plophase.htm

response 163 of 604:

Apr 10 08:37 UTC 2002

Uh, explain to me again how blowing up a bus or pizza parlor
*inside* Israel is 'self-defense'?  I can see the point of view
of the hounds too, but you, sir, are an idiot.

response 165 of 604:

Apr 10 13:13 UTC 2002

Somehow I keep flashing back to the big gun control debate a few Agoras ago,
and how folks like mikep (now mvpel) were talking about how different things
would have turned out if the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had been armed.

response 167 of 604:

Apr 10 18:18 UTC 2002

The subject of #162 is what Arafat said in the interviewes reported in
#152. He said nothing about blowing up anything. 

response 169 of 604:

Apr 10 19:40 UTC 2002

News stories about Arafat in the past year or so do frequently mention
(but rarely highlight) his public statements about conquest and martyrdom
in Arabic, which follow and undermine his peaceable words in English. 

Why can't he call for a cease fire, or renounce suicide bombings, in
Arabic?  He has refused to do so.

response 171 of 604:

Apr 10 22:02 UTC 2002

As Sharon's siege continues, the focus of the Israeli-Palestinian war is
shifting to a growing group of Israeli reservist soldiers who are refusing
to fight. By Monday the number of these "refuseniks" had grown to 404. They
include officers, paratroopers, combat infantry, engineersthe entire gamut
of the Israeli Defense Forces. Over the weekend, a group protested in front
of Sharon's home in Jerusalem. Thirty-two have been sent to jail, according
to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. 

Statements by two reservists provide a glimpse of their thinking. Reserve
Corporal David Pearlman, who refused to serve in the territories and was sent
to prison for 14 days: "The principles and motives that six and a half years
ago led me to leave Australia, come to live in Israel, and serve as a regular
conscript in the Israel Defense Forces, and later as a reservist, are the same
principles and motives that have prompted me, now, to refuse to serve in the
Occupied Territories and play a part in carrying out immoral actions." 

A second reservist, Elad Lahav, sentenced to 28 days in prison: "Since seder
night, I have been living with a terrible feeling because of the horrific
terror attack in Netanya, because of the government's decision to conduct an
ongoing act of war, the final outcome of which no one knows, and due to the
fact that I am herewhile my unit comrades are stationed in Hebron. . . . I
am a Zionist and a patriot and went to serve in an infantry unit out of free
choice. When I informed [the IDF] of my refusal to do reserve duty in Hebron,
around half of my friends in my platoon told me that they supported my
actions. The others said they didn't agree with me, but understood me." 

The refuseniks' statement, in part: "We, reserve combat officers and soldiers
of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism,
sacrifice, and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who
have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out
any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and
strengthen it. 

"We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long
weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been
on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands
and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and
that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian
people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from
both sides. 

"We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories destroy all
the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country. 

"We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF's
human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society. 

"We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements
are bound to be evacuated in the end. 

"We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the
Settlements. 

"We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate,
expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people. 

"We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces
in any mission that serves Israel's defense. 

"The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purposeand we
shall take no part in them. . . . " 

response 173 of 604:

Apr 10 22:49 UTC 2002

Re 170.  I realize that Arafat is held to a very low standard.  But his
remarks in Arabic as quoted in major media in recent weeks and months are
TOTALLY at variance with what he says in English. 

Across cultures and history, individual acts of political violence become
frequent when leaders motivate people to commit them (even leaving aside
leaders who call for, direct, plan, and fund acts of political violence). 
They happen much more rarely when leaders disavow and denounce them.

Zinni and Powell both asked Arafat to call in Arabic for an end to suicide
bombings, or at least for a temporary cease fire.  He has refused to do
so. 

Is that so hard to understand?